_il'-.......II ....... D. m~nn No.189 June 1967 ~A CBHA~ C@ M:lLBSTONB ~ info from E.M. Johnson = '§:. Ii) e G~ !, ur cover photograph and the two pictures on the opposite page record a truly historic event for the Canadian Railroad His­ torical Association -- the first operation of a "museum" locomotive under steam. This very worthy centennial activity has been carried out by our EDMONTON CHAPTER, notwithstanding very limited material resources. As mentioned in an earlier "Canadian Rail", Northern Alberta 2-8-0 No. 73 was moved outside of the Cromdale carbarns of the Edmonton Transit System before Christmas 1966, but this was by filling the boiler with air pressure at 100 pounds per inch squared. This provided sufficient energy to move the locomotive in and out of the barns and served as a cold test of the restored engine's pipes and valves. Recently, the Edmonton Chapter obtained an Alberta Pro­ vincial boiler inspection certificate and the engine was steamed for the first time since being donated to the Association, on April 29. The accompanying photos were taken on April 30. The engine is in fine condition and reflects great credit on the Edmonton team, led by Harold Maw, which has worked long and hard on the restoration project. One stall of the Cromdale carbarns, now used for buses, has been made available to the C.R.H.A. and houses Edmonton street­ car No. I, Locomotive No. 73, and other smaller items such as handcars. The carbarns are located immediately alongside the CN's main line leading to the downtown passenger station and are served by a railway spur. Edmonton Chapter members extended this spur and laid a switch to provide access to "their" stall. A paved area at the end of the barns is crossed by prefabricated track sections -­ full scale "snap track" -- which are piled out of the way of Edmon­ ton Transit System operations when not in use. Congratulations, Edmonton members. Your roster of steam locomotives may be small, but it is all in top notch operating shape with certificates to prove it. The U. S. S.R. booklet "IN ADDITION TO WAGES" di stri buted at the Soviet Pavillion at Expo '67, contains an interesting Russian transit note: "A Metro ticket costs five kopecks and is good for all lines. It costs five kopecks on a bus ••••• and three kopecks on a tram". In NOrth Ameri ca, the average MetroTSU6=" way) ticket costs 25¢ ••• say, five nickels. It costs an av­ erage of five nickels on a bus. Would it have cost only ~ee nickels on-a-tram??? if Canadian municipalities had retained their trams instead of replacing them by buses??? 123 Getting There 5.S. Worthen Was Half The Fun Being an Account of an Ingenious method of circumventing a natural obstacle ~e burgers of Boston had "had it in" for the proprietors of ~portland, Maine, ever since the Atlantic & St. Lawrence joined the St. Lawrence and Atlantic, thus establishing a broad-gauge highway from the River to the Sea. This aggrivation was only in­ creased when the Grand Trunk leased the line, connected it with Quebec City, and then crossed the St. Lawrence to Montreal, in 1859. The stimulus which set the Vermont Central Railroad Com­ pany up and over the Green Mountains in 1848 was properly Bostonian. The wiley burge rs had an eye on the Montreal-Great Lake s traffic, over a railroad which wo.uld be, of course, cantrolled by other mem­ bers of the commercial society of Boston. Once this had been ac­ complished, they would be, once and for all, rid of the malevolant influence of the Grand Trunk, the Erie and the growing New York Central Railroad. A ~r passenger train ran between White River Junction and Bethel on June 26, 1847. The railroad was officially opened on February 13, 1849 to Windsor, Vt. It ftrally reached Essex Junction, near Burlington Vt., on December 31, 1849. But it was still one hundred miles (and one river, The Richelieu) away from Montreal. To be more precise, it was some seventy miles (and one river) short of the nearest railway, a standard gauge effort at St. Johns, Que., called the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad. Elsewhere, it has been recorded how the Champlain and St. Lawrence came over to St. Johns on the 4 foot 8}, with a whoop and a holler, in 1836. Here, on the banks of the Richelieu, it lan­ guished for a.bout ten years, while the side-wheelers on Lake Champlain carried the traffic to Burlington, Vt., and Plattsburg and Whitehall N.Y., to the waiting arms of the Ruthland and Burlington, on the Saratoga and Washington. But not, unfortunately, onto the metals of the Vermont Central, whose nearest point to Burlington, and interconnected to it by a spur, was at Essex Junction. Now this was a situation which could not be tolerated. Additional indignities were beaped on the head of the Vermont Central when, in 1851, the Champlain and St. Lawrence ex­ tended its line to Rouses' Point N.Y., and a junction with the Northern Railroad of New York, whose main line wound away to the west, and Ogdensburgh, N.Y., on the upper, smoother reaches of the St. Lawrence, just east of Lake Ontario. From 1851 until the Grand Trunk Railway was opened through eastern Ontario in 1857. this was the preferred route for those travelling from l>1ontreal to towns in Ontario. Meanwhile, in 1847, the Montreal and Lachine Railway had been completed, and in 1852 the Lake St. Louis and Province Line Railroad had managed to make a start from Caughnawaga, opposite Lachine, to the international boundary near Mooers, N.Y., where it made a very opportune junction with the Northern Railroad of New York, aforementioned. This was the connection that finally "broke CANADIAN 125 R A I L the camel's back" and forced the amalgamat10n of the Champla1n and St.Lawrence and the Montreal and Lach1ne, under the corporate t1tle of the Montreal and Champla1n Ra1lroad Oompany, 1n 1857. Now th1s does not mean that the Vermont CenUrel was stand- 1ng 1dly by wh1le all th1s hoorah was tak1ng place. W1th the advent of the Champla1n and St.Lawrence 1n Rouses' Po1nt, the only natural barr1er to an end-on connect1on w1th 1t was the R1che11eu River, -­ that and M1ss1ssquo1 Bay and some 45 m1les of Vermont Landscape, wh1ch was far from level, and had some very awkward ups and downs 1n 1t. A survey of a route from Bur11ngton to the State l1ne 1n the Town of H1ghgate was made 1n 1848, a charter for wh1ch (The Vermont and Canada Ra11road Company) had been granted as early as 1845. The extens10n from Essex Junct10n to St. Albans was completed on October 17, 1850 and the last 11nk, through Swanton, over M1ss1ss­ quo1 Bay, through Alburgh to the Riche11eu, and over 1t to Rouses' Po1nt, N.Y., was completed on the glor1ous f1rst of June, 1851. Th1s 1s a rather long preface to a descr1pt1on of the actual method by wh1ch the Vermont and Canada - Vermont Central crossed the one m11e of R1che11eu Bay on Lake Champla1n, to a junc­ t10n w1th the Northern Ra11road of New York and the Champla1n and St. Lawrence, for St. Johns and Montreal, and for Ch1rubusco, North Lawrence, Malone, Ogdensburgh and po1nts west. The R1che11eu had always been a nav1gable r1ver. Or1g1- nally for canoes, later for long-boats, canoes, Durham boats, sloops, H1s and Her Majesty's sh1ps and 1n 1850 Uncle Sam's side­ wheelers for Lak~ Champla1n. Of course, th1s 1mmed1ately e11m1nated the poss1b1l1ty of a so11d p11e trestle across the m1le-w1de bay, but 1ngenu1ty preva1led, and 1n 1851, a remarkable structure was la1d across the bosom of the bay. It is reported 1n the follow1ng f detail 1n Moore's New England V1ews, pub11shed by H.P. Moore 1n 1861: But the place (R1che11eu Bay) 1s one of more 1mmeiliate interest to the tour1st or traveller, on account of the remarkable ra11way connect1on, wh1ch, by the exerc1se of extraord1nary enterpr1se, mechan1cal 1ngenu1ty and perseverance, has been here effected between the Vermont and Canada and the Ogdensburgh Ra11roads, and by wh1ch, not only those two 1mportant 11nes, but the two States of Vermont and New York, before access1ble to each other for a hundred miles along their borders only by water craft, have become connected by an unbroken line of ra11s extend1ng over br1dge and br1dge-boat, a m11e across the lake, as very accurately exh1b1ted, together w1th a port1on of the surrounding lake scenery, 1n the accompany1ng view, taken a short distance 1n front of the ra11road stat1on, on the Vermont s1de of the lake. Th1s br1dge 1n 1ts whole length 1s 5,290 feet z or one m11e and two rods, and was erected at a total cost of ~60,000, of which about $20,000 were expended on the draw, or as it 1s usually and perhaps more properly called the Boat Br1dge. Three-f1fths of the whole structure, 1ncluding the Boat Br1dge, were built by the Vermont and Canada and the Vermont Central, and the rema1n1ng two-f1fths by the Ogdensburgh Ra11road. The Boat Br1dge, or that part wh1ch sw1ngs open to perm1t the passage of vessels, and 1s thus made to serve the purposes of a huge draw, 1s of the grea~ length of 301 feet, and 1s an ent1rely CANADIAN 126 R A I L A very early view of the "Floatinp, Bridee" across Richelieu Bay, Lake Champlain, showing the construction of the Vermont &.